Well done, Hamburger

José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, making a speech at a banquet on Friday (24 February) in Hamburg, gave a lesson in how to pander to your audience.

“You may not know my head of cabinet is from Hamburg; in other words, a Hamburger is running the European Commission,” he said.

This remark might not go down so well with other audiences – in Brussels, for example, where the role of Johannes Laitenberger might be viewed differently. But Barroso didn’t get where he is today without mastering the art of saying different things to different audiences.